Only If
by Trivher
Summary: 9 years have past, can Irene face the pain?


"Asleep At The Wheel"

**Legal Stuff - I don't own the song (wallflowers do) Don't own the characters (Disney does)**

  
  
Irene had been dreading this moment and found a thousand excuses and reasons over the years.But it was time to do it.Taking a deep breath as if trying to suck in hope that might be floating around the atmosphere she enters her youngest son's bedroom.Everything was the same way as it had been that day, even the can of coke sat on the desk half full, but surely undrinkable.She looks around not knowing where to begin and decides to start with his top dresser drawer.Falling on to the ground as if it had been waiting for the day of freedom since it was shut away, was a piece of paper.Careful not give it any wrinkles Irene picks it up and reads.

Do you ever stop to count all the invitations  
At the end of the day when it comes down to one decision  
Of dead beat girls and freaks at a peoples convention,  
All these sugars with no vitamin sensation.

It was a poem, or perhaps lyrics to a song.No matter what exactly they were created to be Irene didn't know.Just that it was Clu's and she instantly loved it.College was hard for him, he pretended it was just fine, but as a mother she knew.Both her children were good looking and girls always had their eyes on him.Maybe he had tried too hard and too fast.  
  
_Do you ever stop to look over old relations,  
Or look to the belly of another one's emotions,  
Someone young in the winds of a revolution  
Trying to save his face in the evolution._

Thinking of her baby in all that deep hidden emotional pain killed Irene all over again.Clu was screaming out for help, why didn't anyone come to the rescue!?Has his mother she felt the guilt and blame should lie directly with her.Was it Carey that he wanted to escape from?Didn't want to be just like his brother but somewhere along the way lost his identity.  
  
_He's kept alive in the chain of mental starvation,  
Bone rail skinny, only feeding off frustration.  
Unlike you who seem bred from corruption  
Feeding off the plates of an ununited nation._

Irene momentarily sets the paper down and scans the room.How could these words be coming from the head of the boy who still had cartoon posters and comic books spread around?Clu being sad wasn't a question but the suavity of it had been.This verse gave her some insight though.  
  
  
_With a lover in the street whose waiting to make a connection  
To be the mother to the soul of your next abortion,  
She'll steal your money with the eyes of a baby's complexion  
Then she'll laugh at you and your sexual invention._

He had a girlfriend, talked about her, as she was both the sun and the moon.Pictures were all they had, never having been granted permission to see her for real.Then suddenly like he started talking about her the conversations with her name had vanished.Irene hoped to God this wasn't the reason of why.  
  
_Smelling like a rose, in the flowers of devotion,  
Devoted the heat of a spotlight in motion,  
With a face full of mud even though you were only joking  
As if you really understood the value of isolation._

When the mysterious girl left was when Clu began to spill away too.He no longer held the same smile, his laugh had died.Thinking back Irene couldn't help to see the warning signs.The people on TV and other at risk ads say watch for signs.But why don't they come clear until it's too late?  
  
_Asleep at the wheel,  
No windshield,  
But you know that the streets  
Here don't change._

He was right, things never changed.People might come and go like he had, but when it comes down to it everything was same.The saying life is a carousel held true.Spinning you into a circle, at times too fast that you feel sick.Others too slow and completely boring.Then it stops and you simply fall off.Clu's ride had ended much too soon.  
  
_Your tongue so fast like a freight train coming on rollin'  
Every smile you give's just to keep your mouth from clothin'  
Every engine burns as a sign of the explosion  
Locked in neutral your engines are broken._

Irene traces her hand over the words, trying to touch a piece of her son.To hold him again, if only for one hug and one final I love you.She swore even though it had been years since she had seen into his eyes, he was always near.Just she couldn't reach him.  
  
_Like candle wax that sun melts into the ocean,  
Like the moon that lights the tracks of the old train station,  
You can color in the lines of mother earth's addictions,  
And not hold a gun in the face of the Earth's abduction_

Not caring about persevering wrinkles Irene swats the paper away onto the ground.The anger was creeping in, almost pure hatred.Last week she attended her oldest granddaughter's 7th birthday party and heard the precious term I love you granny.Carey was blessed with three great kids and had become a wonderful person in society.And Clu didn't have that.All he had was a pine box buried with him inside deep into the ground.With him died possible grandkids, perhaps the instructions of a new infection or cure.No one would know because he dealt with the depression by holding that gun to his temple.  
  
Irene picks the letter back up and returns it to dresser drawer.Leaving the room not wanting to discover more answers to the great mystery of why.Nine years ago and still the room like the streets hadn't changed.

  
  



End file.
